Basic education in Finland is obligatory and free of charge for everybody aged under 17 years. Approximately 3000-5000 asylum applications are made by refugees annually in Finland. Most of the refugees to Finland come from Iraq, Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Russian Federation. Finland has a long history of equality and everybody has the same rights and responsibilities despite of gender, ethnicity, religion or language. In Finland everybody is entitled to basic education despite where you are from originally.

Students from different ethnic and religious backgrounds are noted in Finnish national curriculum. Immigrant children start their school career in preparatory classes and spend their first year studying Finnish and other subjects. After one year in preparatory class immigrant children move to basic education classes with other Finnish students. Refugee students in Finland study Finnish as their second language.

From the port to the hotspot where their identification and the asylum application take place.

2 completely different situations can arise after asylum applications

1) If they are accepted, the refugee is transferred to the first reception centre, waiting for long times for a response.

2) If the refugee is rejected, he/she is transferred to a detention centre (CPR):

In a maximum time of 180 days he/she is expelled from Italy and repatriated.

The first reception centres are located on the Mediterranean Sea:

Lampedusa; (Agrigento) and Pozzallo (Ragusa) in Sicily;

Elmos (Cagliari) on Sardinia island;

Otranto (Lecce) in Puglia, south-east of Italy;

The deportation centres are in Turin (north), Rome (centre), Bari, Trapani, Caltanissetta (south of Italy).

When a new foreign student arrives, we:

-work in small groups;

-have a different classmate tutor every week;

-welcome our new student with posters in his / her language;

-create a multicultural classroom.

Yet, in practice, thousands of refugee children across Greece are not receiving formal education. According to Greece’s 2019 report in the Asylum Information Database, it was stated that of the roughly 37,000 refugee children of school age, only around a third are enrolled in the school system, the majority of whom are based in cities, as opposed to those in the island ‘hotspots’ like Chios, Lesvos, and Samos, or residential centres on the mainland. Indeed, on the islands, the number of children enrolled in education amounts to around one quarter. 

In 2016, the Greek Ministry of Education began a series of mandatory afternoon and morning classes (DYEP) designed to help refugees better integrate in Greece and to prepare them for full engagement with the formal school system. Yet, despite the increasing number of DYEP classes in recent years, they have been criticised for furthering the indirect segregation between Greek children and refugee children as there is no interaction between Greek students and refugees in these classes. Also, as DYEP classes do not apply to youths over 15, older children are left out.
Many refugee children are being educated on a non-formal basis. There are dozens of international NGOs all over Greece providing refugees with informal education, but this too is an imperfect solution. For children not enrolled or not attending classes in Greek schools, attending in-camp informal education centres or youth spaces can be a fantastic way to find the structure, stability and opportunities for socialising that regular schooling offers. However, these centres are often underfunded (relying 100% on grants or donations), understaffed, and as they exist outside the formal school system, do not follow the official curriculum or offer children opportunities to interact with Greek peers. 
So, as it stands, the educational provisions for refugees in Greece demand improvement. However, as Greece has by far the largest public debt in Europe and hosts a large proportion of Europe’s refugees, it simply lacks the means to provide the services required.